A project designed to detect "homegrown violent extremists and lone actors" before they attack is estimated to cost the Florida Department of Law Enforcement millions of dollars, and agency officials want lawmakers to start paying for parts of it next year.

The agency is asking the Legislature for $3.6 million to support multiple parts of its "behavioral threat assessment" tool, which has been extolled by Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Rick Swearingen.

The money would cover the cost of "cellular phone analytics" and eight full-time senior crime intelligence analysts and provide a year's worth of funding to run a new data analytics system that would eventually replace the department's "antiquated" records system, according to the agency's 2020-2021 budget request filed in September.